Worldwide, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have been accepted as an engine of economic growth and for promoting equitable development. In developing countries including India, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector constitute an important part in its development. In spite of this importance, this sector face number of constraints like absence of adequate and timely supply of bank finance, difficulties in procuring raw materials, marketing and distribution challenges and non availability of suitable technology. Review of literature found that there exists problem in accessing finance from banks and financial institutions and this problem may differ from region to region, between sectors, or between individual enterprises within a sector. This paper tries to identify the various barriers faced by these units in raising finance and also try to identify the various sources of finance other than banks. The study is based upon the primary data collected from the 200 MSMEs owners in Kozhikode District of Kerala. The data has been analysed with the help of percentage. The study attempts to submit some recommendations to enhance the overall credit accessibility to MSMEs sector

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This paper aims to highlight the difficulties faced by organizations in implementing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). The authors with their experience in TPM and the refinery industry have attempted to understand the factors that hinder implementation of TPM. The paper first explains in brief the concepts of TPM and why TPM is a must for organizations in this complex dynamic business environment. It then takes up the various issues that hamper implementation of TPM in industries. Solutions to overcome the barriers are discussed briefly but will be taken up in detail in another paper with specific reference to refinery scenario

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 2, ISSUE 5, MAY 2013

Tourism being a smokeless industry is now a multi-billion, multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional activity in
the world. Twenty first century tourism has reached up to space when a Russian rocket carried the space
vehicle of Dennis Tito, an American businessman and the world’s first space tourist, to the space station.
Time is not too far to carry tourists to moon and other planets in specially launched vehicles.
Tourism is being considered as an agent of social change bridging gaps among nations, regions and people
and helping them to open up. It is a promoter of development-material and spiritual both at macro and
micro level. The General Assembly of the United Nations, in designating the year 1967 as ‘International
Tourism Year’ recognized the importance of international travel as a means of fostering understanding
among people, and giving them a knowledge of the rich heritage of the past civilizations, a better
appreciation of the values of different cultures, thus contributing to the strengthening of world peace. It
adopted the theme “Tourism-Passport to peace”. Our veteran national leader and the first Prime Minister
of India, Jawaharlal Nehru had said” welcome a tourist and send back a friend” which indicates the need
for extending friendly hospitality to the in bound tourists.
Modern transportation has removed the obstacles of distance enabling people to appreciate each other
engage in the exchange of ideas and commerce. Tourism can help overcome real prejudices and foster
bonds. Tourism can be a real force of world peace.
Considering the vast and varied potential of tourism in the state and its impact on the economic, social and
cultural environment of the state, a detailed study is found to be relevant and imperative

Automobile Industry in India is influenced by the presence of national and multi-national
manufacturers. The presence of many manufacturers and brands in the state provides many
choices to the customer. The current market for car manufacturers has been transformed from a
monopoly of one or two manufacturers in the seventies to oligopoly of many manufacturers in
the current marketing scenario. The main objective of the research paper is to explore and
conceptualize various parameters and develop a model, which influence the purchase patterns of
passenger cars in the State of Kerala. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to come up with a
model, which shall facilitate further study on the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of
passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, India. The author intends to undertake further
quantitative analysis to verify and validate the model so developed. The main methods used for
this paper are secondary research on available material, depth interview of car dealers, car
financing agencies and car owners in the city of Cochin, in Kerala State in India.
The depth interviews were conducted with the use of prepared questionnaire for car dealers, car
customers and car financing agencies. The findings resulted in the identification of the
parameters that influence the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars and the
formulation of the model, which will be the basis for the further research of the author. The
paper will be of tremendous value to the existing and new car manufacturers both indigenous
and foreign, to formalize and strategies their policies towards an effective marketing strategy, so
as to market their models in the State, which is known for its high literacy, consumerism and
higher educational penetration

This paper presents the optimal design of a sur-
face mounted permanent magnet Brushless DC mo-
tor (PMBLDC) meant for spacecraft applications.
The spacecraft applications requires the choice of a
torques motor with high torque density, minimum
cogging torque, better positional stability and high
torque to inertia ratio. Performance of two types
of machine con¯gurations viz Slotted PMBLDC and
Slotless PMBLDC with halbach array are compared
with the help of analytical and FE methods. It is
found that unlike a Slotted PMBLDC motor, the
Slotless type with halbach array develops zero cogging
torque without reduction in the developed torque.
Moreover, the machine being coreless provides high
torque to inertia ratio and zero magnetic stiction

This paper presents the design and analysis of a
400-step hybrid stepper motor for spacecraft applications. The
design of the hybrid stepper motor for achieving a specific
performance requires the choice of appropriate tooth geometry.
In this paper, a detailed account of the results of two-dimensional
finite-element (FE) analysis conducted with different tooth
shapes such as square and trapezoidal, is presented. The use of
% more
corresponding increase in detent torque and distorted static
torque profile. For the requirements of maximum torque density,
less-detent torque, and better positional accuracy and smooth
static torque profile, different pitch slotting with equal tooth
width has to be provided. From the various FE models subjected
to analysis trapezoidal teeth configuration with unequal tooth
pitch on the stator and rotor is found to be the best configuration
and is selected for fabrication. The designed motor is fabricated
and the experimental results is compared with the FE results

The tough competition in the global and national markets and new trends in consumerism resulted in an increase in the volume of advertisements. Sometimes advertisers are successful in achieving their intended objectives with a particular advertisement and sometimes they are not .These factors contributed a lot towards the decision making problems of advertising agencies with regard to the selection of appropriate advertising strategies and tactics. The tough competition and large volume of advertising make the consumers confused and this even created doubts in the minds of consumers about the genuineness and reliability of manufacturers and products.
These factors caused a query regarding the active role of credibility element in advertising. The proposed study examines the effects of advertising credibility in consumer health care non durable product advertising on communication effect, purchase behavior and ad skepticism. This paper examines the need for the study of advertising credibility and reviews the advertising- consumer behaviour- credibility – healthcare theories which form a basis for the study. It identifies the different components and dimensions of advertising credibility and the importance of communication effect, purchase behavior and ad skepticism. It also studies the relevance of credibility in the consumer healthcare products advertising and suggests a Theoretical Framework for the proposed study

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European Journal of Commerce and Management Research (EJCMR) Vol-I, Issue 1,DEC 2012

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990’s. World Leaders in automobile manufacturing such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers’ market to buyers’ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to come up with the identification of possible parameters and a framework development, that influence the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, so that further research could be done, based on the framework and the identified parameters.

Description:

International Journal of Research in IT & Management,Volume 2, Issue 5 (May 2012)

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers,
changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990’s. World Leaders in automobile
manufacturing such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault,
Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in
joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct
Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the
hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product
features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian
passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and
particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers’
market to buyers’ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences
and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment.
The main purpose of this paper is to develop a model with major variables, which influence
the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala.
Though there are innumerable studies conducted in other countries, there are very few thesis
and research work conducted to study the consumer behaviour of the passenger car industry
in India and specifically in the State of Kerala. The results of the research contribute to the
practical knowledge base of the automobile industry, specifically to the passenger car
segment. It has also a great contributory value addition to the manufacturers and dealers for
customizing their marketing plans in the State

Successful management is dependent heavily on the manager’s ability to handle conflict
effectively. The workforce has been increasingly becoming diversified vis-à-vis the gender,
culture and ethnicity. The present work environment has in itself contributed to sowing seeds of
conflict with greater diversity, hostility, complexity and newer business competencies in the
work context.The classic study of Mintzberg’s Managerial roles approach (1973) also says that a
manager has to spend sufficient time and energy in solving conflict as he has to take roles as a
negotiator, and dispute handler. An understanding of the conflict and role that it plays in
influencing employee behavior constructively or destructively is immense. Therefore conflict
when left unmanaged can lead to diminished cohesiveness amongst employees, productivity and
reduced organizational fitness. To manage conflict effective conflict resolution strategies that
have constructive outcomes is called for. Conflict resolution style theorists opine that
collaborative or integrative style, where there is high concern for task and people is considered to
give positive individual and organizational outcomes, while the withdrawing /avoidance style
and forcing / dominating style are considered to be ineffective in managing conflict. Though
managers have typical preferences in the styles followed it need not necessarily be the typical
response as it depends on the context, power relationships, emotions etc. The adoption of conflict
styles of managers however is dependent on variables like gender orientation, cultural values,
personality orientation, underlying relationships – public/private.
The paper attempts to draw the importance of managing conflicts at workplace positively and the
need for effective conflict resolution strategies. The conflict style adopted and the variables that
affect the adoption of each style are discussed and possible interventions at the workplace are
suggested

Description:

International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research,
Vol.2 (2), FEBRUARY (2013

The paper summarizes the design and implementation
of a quadratic edge detection filter, based on Volterra series,
for enhancing calcifications in mammograms. The proposed
filter can account for much of the polynomial nonlinearities
inherent in the input mammogram image and can replace the
conventional edge detectors like Laplacian, gaussian etc. The
filter gives rise to improved visualization and early detection of
microcalcifications, which if left undetected, can lead to breast
cancer. The performance of the filter is analyzed and found
superior to conventional spatial edge detectors

The towed array electronics is essentially a multichannel real time data
acquisition system. The major challenges involved in it are the simultaneous
acquisition of data from multiple channels, telemetry of the data over tow cable
(several kilometres in some systems) and synchronization with the onboard receiver
for accurate reconstruction. A serial protocol is best suited to transmit the data to
onboard electronics since number of wires inside the tow cable is limited. The best
transmission medium for data over large distances is the optical fibre. In this a two
step approach towards the realization of a reliable telemetry scheme for the sensor
data using standard protocols is described. The two schemes are discussed in this
paper. The first scheme is for conversion of parallel, time-multiplexed multi-sensor
data to Ethernet. Existing towed arrays can be upgraded to ethernet using this
scheme. Here the last lap of the transmission is by Ethernet over Fibre. For the next
generation of towed arrays it is required to digitize and convert the data to ethernet
close to the sensor. This is the second scheme. At the heart of this design is the
Analog-to-Ethernet node. In addition to a more reliable interface, this helps in easier
fault detection and firmware updates in the field for the towed arrays. The design
challenges and considerations for incorporating a network of embedded devices
within the array are highlighted

Recognizing that high satisfaction leads to high customer loyalty, companies today are aiming for total customer
satisfaction. This article explains relative impact of product quality, service quality and contextual experience on
customer perceived value and intention to shop in the future. The data has been collected using a questionnaire from
205 customers of a national retailer chain. The relative importance of product quality, service quality and contextual
experience on customer perceived value and thus on customer preference and future intentions was measured using
multiple regression. Also, the contribution of perceived value to preference and thus on future buying intention was
also measured. Structural Equation Model (SEM) using Amos 4 was used to find the overall fitness of the model. It
was found that product quality, service quality and contextual experience have a major influence on customer
perceived value

The paper ‘Impact of Quality on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing in Industries in
Kerala in the present Indian scenario’ highlights the observations, based on a descriptive research
carried out in five leading industries in Kerala, in the private and public sector. Ethics and social
responsibilities, practiced in these industries, are reflected in the results of the survey conducted
on specific queries like awareness of products/services provided by them, total understanding of
the requirements of the customer, open discussion on technical matters, accountability of
employees to the society and social needs, consumer ethics vis a vis business ethics etc. Team
working goes a long way, in building relations, which in turn, results in a progressive and
effective marketing strategy. This assumes paramount importance, considering the severe
competition we are facing in the light of liberalization, privatization and globalization, which
encompasses the globe. The prediction of India becoming a lead nation, along with USA, China
and Japan, in this decade, can get fructified only if we follow a very high standards of ethics and
social responsibility, in all domains including marketing.
Organizations like TRW.Rane, Sundaram Fasteners, TVS Motors, in Chennai are a few among
others in India, who have achieved the highest distinction in quality viz Deming Prize, and these
demonstrate their commitment to quality, society and humanity at large. Cost effectiveness,
without jeopardizing quality has become the need of the hour and MRTP has become history.
This trait is being brought out through the survey and the results speak for themselves. Unethical
practices like switch and bait, not only brings shame to the organization, and country but also
results in the company getting wiped out from the market. Adherence to standards like ISO 14000
helps to maintain the minimum level of social responsibility and environmental friendliness. Like
quality audit, safety audit etc, social audit is being insisted in all progressive countries to ensure
that the organization comply with the minimum statutory requirements.
The paper also touches upon Corporate Social Responsibility practiced in the industries and this
becomes crystal clear through their commitment to improve the community. Green Marketing
lays a lot of importance on the three Rs of environmentalism viz Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The
objective of any business is to achieve optimal profit and this is possible only by reducing the
cost as well as waste. In this context, management tools like brainstorming, suggestion schemes,
benchmarking etc becomes helpful. These characteristics are brought out through the analysis of
survey results. The conclusions drawn throw a lot of information on the desirable practices with
respect to Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing

To provide maintenance engineering community with a model named “Maintenance
quality function deployment” (MQFD) for nourishing the synergy of quality function deployment
(QFD) and total productive maintenance (TPM) and enhancing maintenance quality of products and
equipment.The principles of QFD and TPM were studied. MQFD model
was designed by coupling these two principles. The practical implementation feasibility of MQFD
model was checked in an automobile service station.Both QFD and TPM are popular approaches and several benefits of implementing them
have been reported worldwide. Yet the world has not nourished the synergic power of integrating
them. The MQFD implementation study reported in this paper has revealed its practical validity

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Ethnic/Minority entrepreneur is a business owner who does not represent the
majority population of a country. Ethnic/Minority entrepreneurship can bring benefits
to individual, society, region, economy, and globe too. So, understanding the importance
of ethnic/minority entrepreneurship will really be useful to all the stakeholders. The
unique culture and value system of ethnic minorities are the most wanted characteristics
for any successful entrepreneur in general. Many industrial nations like U.S, U.K.,
Germany, etc. have utilised the ethnic minorities to build their economy. The future
of the minority businesses looks bright as the world economy is booming, availability
of experienced and already successful minority entrepreneurs as role models, and
institutional support services. In this paper, literature relating to the benefits of ethnic
and minority entrepreneurship is reviewed to understand its magnitude of benefits.

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990‟s. Manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers‟ market to buyers‟ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to come up with the identification of possible parameters and a framework development, that influence the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, so that further research could be done, based on the framework and the identified parameters

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Refiners today operate their equipment for prolonged periods without shutdown. This is primarily due to the increased pressures of the market resulting in extended shutdown-to-shutdown intervals. This places extreme demands on the reliability of the plant equipment. The traditional methods of reliability assurance, like Preventive Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance and Condition Based Maintenance become inadequate in the face of such demands. The alternate approaches to reliability improvement, being adopted the world over are implementation of RCFA programs and Reliability Centered Maintenance. However refiners and process plants find it difficult to adopt this standardized methodology of RCM mainly due to the complexity and the large amount of analysis that needs to be done, resulting in a long drawn out implementation, requiring the services of a number of skilled people. These results in either an implementation restricted to only few equipment or alternately, one that is non-standard. The paper presents the current models in use, the core requirements of a standard RCM model, the alternatives to classical RCM, limitations in the existing model, classical RCM and available alternatives to RCM and will then go on to present an ‗Accelerated‘ approach to RCM implementation, that, while ensuring close conformance to the standard, does not place a large burden on the implementers

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 2, ISSUE 5, MAY 2013

This paper presents the design and analysis of a novel
machine family—the enclosed-rotor Halbach-array permanentmagnet
brushless dcmotors for spacecraft applications. The initial
design, selection of major parameters, and air-gap magnetic flux
density are estimated using the analytical model of the machine.
The proportion of the Halbach array in the machine is optimized
using finite element analysis to obtain a near-trapezoidal flux
pattern. The machine is found to provide uniform air-gap flux
density along the radius, thus avoiding circulating currents in stator
conductors and thereby reducing torque ripple. Furthermore,
the design is validated with experimental results on a fabricated
machine and is found to suit the design requirements of critical
spacecraft applications

This paper presents the design and analysis of a novel
machine family of Siotiess Permanent Magnet Brushless DC
motors (PMBLDC) for precise positioning applications of
spacecrafts. Initial design, selection of major parameters and air
gap magnetic flux density are estimated using the analytical
model of the machine. The proportion of the halbach array in the
machine was optimized using FE to obtain near trapezoidal flux
pattern. The novel machine topology is found to deliver high
torque density, high efficiency, zero cogging torque, better
positional stability, high torque to inertia ratio and zero magnetic
stiction suiting space requirements. The machine provides
uniform air gap flux density along the radius thus avoiding
circulating currents in stator conductors and hence reducing
torque ripple

Description:

Communication Control and Computing Technologies (ICCCCT), 2010 IEEE International Conference on